Reference
Grandpa’s Town
By Takaaki Nomura
Review by: Jessica Glenn- Elementary Substitute- Central PA
This story is set in rural Japan and is about a grandpa his grandson Yuuta. At the beginning of the story Yuuta and his mother try to get grandpa to move in with them after the death of grandma because they believe he is lonely. Little Yuuta goes through a day with his grandpa and they go to the bath house and he meet a lot of his grandpa’s friends in their travels. At the end of the story Yuuta realizes that grandpa is not alone or lonely.
I thought this was a good story. I liked the fact that this story has the Japanese written characters in as well as English words written on each page of the story. This story would be great to be used with children in either third or fourth grade. The story would be appropriate to teach about Japanese culture. It could be used on Respect for the Aged Day, the third Monday in September. In Japan this is a national holiday called Keiro No Hi in Japanese. The message in this book that could be taught to the students is that the way you see things isn’t actually the way it is.
